THREE

~Kezi

Melia walks close by my side, as we make out way down the quaintest Harmony Pack street.

It’s unnerving how nothing is out of place. The pavement is immaculate, stained by nothing but the mellow sunlight. Shop windows we pass are all wiped crystal clear, and everything standing on display is not tainted by a fleck of dust, nor pushed a touch out of place. A part of me wants to smear a fingerprint on the glass to do something to disrupt the irritating perfection.

“So, what’s your story?” I ask. I’m curious about Melia. She seems very forward and abrasive. Yet at the same time, it’s as though she shares no information on herself.

“Me? Oh,” she says, dark eyebrows furrowing. A slight wrinkle in the middle of her forward is the only flaw on her face for that fleeting moment. “I was born and raised in the Wisdom Pack. My mother found he real mate here in the Harmony Pack. Took me with her.”

“Was the move hard?” I ask.

She glances at me, and I notice the faint smile on her face. “Not at all.”

Every move that I have made over these past couple years has been extremely difficult. I’m not sure if I struggle with change or not, but leaving behind friends I make in each house is not easy. Neither is moving into a home, settling in and then being torn away from it. As much as this Pack unnerves me, I want to stay here. More than anything.

All of a sudden, my eyes catch a piece of paper taped to the window. It’s the first I’ve seen in any of these store fronts. But what catches my eye, is my own gaze staring right back at me. The photo is of me. A wanted photo.

My heart lurches right into my throat.

There’s no reward there, simply a request to alert authorities if I was seen. The photo is old, but it is distinctively me. Anyone brushing past us could glance at it. Someone may already have, and Alpha Alden is after me already. Quickly, I snatch the paper off before Melia can notice.

“What you got there?” she asks, curiously leaning over. I shoulder my backpack off, shoving into the first pocket.

“Nothing. Paper from school,” I say breezily. I’m used to lying to save myself. Now that I’ve seen this, I’ll have to show Avia. And then off we will go to another Pack, to start a new life. I can already feel that permanent sinking feeling. “Hey, ah, can we hang out later?”

“What’s going on? Are you okay?” Melia. When I turn to look for any sense of concern, I see nothing but tilted lips and taunting eyes.

“I need to go,” I tell her, tossing my backpack over my shoulder as I move away. I eye an alleyway to my left. I can surely find my way back is I disappear down one of those, then emerge once no one is around to witness me. “I’m really sorry. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”

Without waiting for her to wave goodbye, I turn, slipping around the corner.

I stand there, waiting for a moment. How could this happen? I know Alden is pursuing me, but I never knew it was this prevalent? I’m just one of Time’s many travelers. Can’t he just leave me alone for a week, at least? I lean against the rough alleyway wall. The only place around her shrouded in shadows.

Footsteps at the foot of the alleyway catch my attention. Melia is walking down to join me. I cringe. Oh great, how am I meant to get her to leave me alone?

“Took me three months to track you down, and a few hours to gain your trust,” she says sourly. Immediately my breath catches, as her intentions are painted across my vision. “And Alpha said this would be hard.”

I stumble back a few steps. “No, you don’t want to do this. You don’t know us, you don’t understand that we don’t deserve this.”

“You’re so pathetic,” she mutters. “You deserve what’s coming for you.”

I should have known. I should have seen the deceit in her eyes. The smile upon her face as she approaches me, close to trapping me against the wall, is sinister. She looks like Time the night he branded me. She should be a servant to him, not a servant to Alden. Although both seem equally as cruel.

She reaches for me, but I recoil. “Get off me.”

When she comes at me again, I lash out, pinned against the wall. I struck her with my fist. Right across the right side of her face, and her nose. She stumbles back, grabbing at her face. When she looks up, fresh crimson blood drips from her nose, filling the palm of her hand.

“Good hit,” she growls. She’s still smiling; it’s sickening. “It’s a shame I’ve trained my whole life for this.”

This time, she is too quick for me to retaliate. Avia always taught me to run and hide, rather than be confrontational. Melia pushes me back against the wall so hard, it’s jarring. My teeth chatter as she pushes her arm against my neck, pushing hard enough to almost cut my breathing off.

“Please…Mercy,” I struggle against her neck. She raises a taunting eyebrow at me.

“You travelers deserve what’s coming to you,” she growls in my ear. With her free hand, she pushes a cloth against my nose and mouth. The smell is overwhelming, filling my senses. I feel my conscious start to drift, her eyes being the last thing I see. “Goodnight.”

***

Waking was abrupt.

Frigid water consumed my entire being. My eyes flutter open, seeing a figure leaning above me, the edge of them quivering with the water clouding my eyes. I feel them clasp my arms, and my instincts kick in. I burst through the surface, water spraying everywhere as I gasp for air.

“What in the world?” I cough, once my lung where full again. An unfamiliar person wearing a clinical mask over their mouth stares at me with pale green eyes. I shake their grip off me. “Get off me.”

“Please calm down,” they say, voice muffled behind the mask. I can still hear that distinctive Wisdom Pack accent.

Ignoring them, I look around. I’m in a small cube room, with whitewash walls and linoleum floors. Three other people are in the room. Two wearing thick white coats, neither looking at me but rather their task. Whatever that may be. Another is by the door. A security guard of sorts, who watches me closely. Waiting for retaliation.

“Where am I?”

“Stand,” the stranger orders, motioning for me to step out of the bath. “Please.”

I do so, the water slipping off my bare skin. I’m naked in front of these people, but no one seems bothered, or is even looking. I’m more concerned by where I am. The strange woman with the green eyes and hair wrapped up in some kind of white cloth towels me off promptly, before handing me something to dress into.

“Can someone please explain what’s going on right now?” I ask. I’ve been given a slip-on dress item. It’s a pale cream, and as I pull it on, it much too big for me.

“You will be debriefed in a few moments,” the woman says, pulling my soaked hair behind my shoulders. I feel is seep through my outfit, chilling my back. The air in this room is already brittle.

I sigh through my nose. “He’s finally got me, hasn’t he?”

“Please save your words for the debriefing officer.”

Almost as if her words were ones of summoning, another figure bursts into the room. I can tell immediately she is the debriefing officer I was told about. A clipboard is tucked in the nook of her arm, a pen twirling around her fingers. She looks impatient, as she scans the room for me, narrowing her eyes slightly when she finds me.

“I’m glad you’re finally awake,” she says promptly. I’m pushed back into a tall chair I’m forced to clamber onto. “Here I’m referred to as Officer Sermon. And you will be referred to as subject #062.”

“Where am I?”

“You are in a cleansing facility. Here, we are working to remove the brand the immortal Time has left upon you. We are trying to save you,” she explains. Somehow, I don’t believe that. Only because everything around me seems like a way to keep me trapped here. I may also feel that way because everyone’s gaze here is cool and detached.

I shift uncomfortably in my seat. “How do you remove it?”

“We are currently trialing different options. We have not yet discovered the exact recipe, but we believe we are close to it,” she explains. The smile on her lips is tight. As tight as her hair that has been pulled back with a strong tie. “We have managed to save many from Time’s brand.”

“I need more of an explanation…”

Sermon turns, pulling at an extendable whiteboard from the wall. On it, is a list of words I can barely make sense of. All that makes sense, is that this is a calendar writing out what looks like my life.

“Here’s your first week timetable. It will be similar throughout your healing process,” she explains, pointing at each day. “Each of these pills do a different thing. We have found they do the best at removing the brand. They have been engineered in a lab in the Wisdom Pack. Our finest inventions.”

I consider my priorities for a moment. “Why do you hate Travelers so much?”

“That is a question you’ll have to ask Alpha Alden,” she tells me, pushing the board away from her. “Which you will have a chance too. He wants to meet you at the end of this week.”

“Seriously?” I say, my mouth agape. “I’m glad. I need to talk to him.”

“Alright. We have the first pill for you,” she tells me. A woman who wears a similar mask the the one who bathed me places something in Sermons gloved hand. A cup and a pill. “The symptoms will be altered depending on the pills and dosages. I cannot promise they will be nice. Open your mouth.”

I pull my head away as she lifts the pill to my mouth. “Could you name some of these symptoms before I put something in my mouth?”

“Each will come with a small piece of paper reading their purpose and their symptoms. You will receive that after you take the pill,” she tells me, her tone bitter and stern as she glares down at me. “Might I add, that if there is any resistance, we will take further measures to ensure the dosage is taken. I wouldn’t press us.”

I know I shouldn’t. it would be foolish of me to do so. Something worse may happen. I have to bide my time before I can escape.

So I open my mouth, and let her pop the pill right in.

“Good girl,” she says with a sickening smile, “welcome to hell.”